Climate migrants pushed to the brink

The study finds that people’s livelihoods in South Asia are being devastated by intense flooding, chronic drought, sea-level rise and changing weather patterns. As local coping mechanisms fail, people are forced to migrate to survive and make an alternative living to feed their families.

People’s voices brought out through participatory research - backed by policy analysis - offer the following demands and recommendations:

• National governments must recognise the growing problem of climate-induced migration, invest in building resilience and protect migrants through targeted policy interventions at both source and destination sites.
• Climate-induced migration must be a part of forums like the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Budapest Process. Regional cooperation entails common policies, codes and responses, along with the sharing of information and learning from each other.
• South Asian governments must receive financial and capacity-building support.
• There are gaps in definitions and conceptual understanding of climate-induced migration.
• UN agencies, international organisations, labour unions and civil society organisations have a key role to play in identifying gaps and advocating on all aspects of climate-induced migration, including rights- and gender-based approaches.

The study was part of the South Asia Migration andClimate (SAMAC) project, funded by the European Union through the International Centre for Migration PolicyDevelopment (ICMPD) managed project - Improving Migration Management in the Silk Routes Countries - in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, implemented by ActionAid, in collaboration with Climate Action NetworkSouth Asia (CANSA), and its partners.